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Royals pleased with final results of Draft

Royals pleased with final results of Draft

KANSAS CITY -- The 2010 First-Year Player Draft has come and gone, and the Royals think they got just what they were looking for.

Kansas City feels it was able to snag some picks that may have flown under the radar of other teams.

"We are very happy with the way things went," Royals assistant general manager of scouting/player personnel, J.J. Picollo said. "We really feel we had some depth in our draft. We got some guys in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds that we thought might be gone by that point. Even in the 18th, 20th rounds, we feel we found some good picks. That's just the way the Draft works. We were prepared for it and we feel like we got a few guys that are really going to help our system."

Piccolo mentioned right-handed pitcher Jonathan Gray from Chandler High School in Oklahoma, who the Royals took in the 12th round, as one of those value picks -- citing that Gray had a large frame and the prototypical build of a Major League starter.

One noteworthy player from the Royals' Draft is Nick Graffeo, the right-handed pitcher out of the University of Alabama. Graffeo is the stepson of Royals hitting coach Kevin Seitzer.

Another high school player, Jason Adams, who is a right-handed pitcher taken in the fifth round from Blue Valley Northwest High School in Kansas, is a pride of the Royals' Draft. Adams is from right in the team's backyard and they weren't going to let him get away.

"We're very happy to get Jason," Picollo said. "He's a big, strong, right-handed pitcher and he's got some projection, as far as his ability is concerned. But the nice thing about him physically is that he is strong enough to go out right now and handle the work load that professional baseball demands of pitchers."

Although Adams and Gray were both drafted out of high school, the Royals only selected nine high school players among their 50 selections.

"We feel like we have to take the best players available and the way that this Draft happened to go, it was more of a college-oriented Draft," Picollo said. The high school player is a little bit more of a complex situation just because of the money that players need to forgo college. The way our evaluations went this year, we drafted the best players available."

Royals general manager Dayton Moore said that while the organization prefers to draft high school players and bring them up through the farm system, it can by a tough road for some players to take.

"It's tough in the Minor Leagues," Moore said. "It's a great challenge, there's a lot of diversity that exists in our game -- a lot of competition. So the high school player has to be prepared to go out and we feel the ones that we selected are."

Out of the 50 selections, 26 were pitchers, and 21 of those 26 were right-handed. Picollo said that taking so many pitchers is a necessary component to building up a farm system.

"Every Draft, I think, will have plenty of pitching," Picollo said. "If you look at our draft board, half of the board is always pitchers. Because you have 12 pitchers on each Minor League staff, you need to continue to add pitching to the staff. It's the currency of baseball -- every club needs pitching, so if we can develop pitching, then we're in a better place."

A run down of the Royals Day 3 in the Draft:

Round 31, Parker Bangs, RHP, South Carolina

Round 32, Justin Hageman, RHP, Hopkinsville High School, Ky.

Round 33, Anthony Lohden, RHP, Southern Arkansas

Round 34, Mark Blackmar, RHP, Carroll High School, Texas

Round 35, Kris Carlson, RHP, Wenatchee Valley

Round 36, Mitchell Beacom, LHP, UC Los Angeles

Round 37, Robert Penny, LHP, Pittsburg Community College

Round 38, Nick Graffeo, Alabama Birmingham

Round 39, Alexander Rivers, RHP, Santa Clara

Round 40, Dale Cornstubble, C, Central Michigan

Round 41, Matt Ridings, RHP, Western Kentucky

Round 42, Michael Botelho, C, Chabot College

Round 43, Dillon Wilson, LHP, Western Oklahoma State

Round 44, Rashawn Payne, 2B, Georgia Southern

Round 45,Thomas Zebroski, SS, George Washington U

Round 46, William Robertson, C, Middle Tennessee State

Round 47, Clifford Sandford, CF, Park University

Round 48, Jacob Hannemann, CF, Lone Peak High School, Utah

Round 49, Jordan Propst, RHP, South Carolina

Round 50,Joseph Jackson, C, Mauldin High School, South Carolina

Samuel Zuba is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.